The Originals

Fans of The CW’s popular drama, “The Vampire Diaries,” are surely anticipating this fall’s spin-off series, “The Originals,” but executive producer Julie Plec wants to make it clear that they are two very different shows.

Where “Diaries” is a coming-of-age saga, “The Originals” is more adult in theme.

“(‘The Vampire Diaries’) was cemented in the idea of first love and the struggles of being a vampire,” she told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour. “This show isn’t about struggling to be a vampire. It’s about embracing vampirism. It’s about reveling in it. Some of these vampires are a thousand years old, and really, it’s about the power of the family community and the power struggle over the family community and the supernatural community of an entire city.”

Then she offered an analogy: “We like to look at it as we graduated high school and went to college and are getting our little master’s degree in ‘The Originals.'”

“The Originals” follows Klaus (Joseph Morgan), the original vampire-werewolf hybrid, as he returns to New Orleans, the city from which he and his siblings were exiled a century ago by their relentless hunter father. Plenty of blood-sucking tension ensues.

Plec said she and her collaborators are working hard to make sure that “The Originals” will not only draw fans of “Diaries,” but viewers who might never have been interested in the show that spawned it.

“We want to have a show that stands on its own and doesn’t have to rely creatively on the foundation of the mothership, so to speak,” she said.